In the original context, this Harry Potter quote is about good and evil. I think it works just as well to show how people are capable of great happiness and deep sadness. Normally I am all smiles and sparkles. That’s just me, and that’s how most people see me. However, I also go through darker periods too. I thought I’d got through winter without having one of my dark periods. I had my SAD lamp, my serotonin tablets, and I was set. I had a great winter actually, lots of writing, great Christmas, January was a bit meh, but I think that’s how everyone feels, and in February it was my birthday. Just as winter ends, and I’m hanging out the washing outside – my ‘it’s the first sign of spring’ test – and the darkness is back again. OK, I’m not going to lie to you, I do like a good cry. I like a good film or book which makes me bawl my eyes out. I find it cathartic. My top three are: My Sisters Keeper, Steel Magnolias, Muriel’s Wedding. Books wise: John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars, RJ Palacio’s Wonder, Marian Keyes’ Sushi for Beginners. It’s a kind of self-contained managed cry and I like that. Only sometimes, emotions can’t be scheduled. Sometimes you just have to go with them, wherever you are, whatever you’re doing. Things which have made me cry recently:

A James Blunt Video for Bonfire Heart – honestly, I don’t really go much on the singer, but this video made me weep

Finding the first laptop I ever owned in the attic – Dad rescued this approx 1990 Elonex laptop from a skip at his work, sprinkled his magic technical dust on it and it was mine from 1996 – 2006. It has a ‘serviced in 1993’ sticker on the bottom and so who knows how old it really is. For retro computer enthusiasts it’s a 386 processor, 4MB RAM, 340MB hard drive, and is running Windows ’95. At the time a new laptop would have cost about £1200, which was about what I paid for my first 8 year old car! So I didn’t have to constantly ask to borrow Dad’s ‘being used for his work’ computer, he made me my own. I wrote my A level essays studies essays on it, all my letters to friends from that period, university UCAS applications, my entire degree in media and comms is on it, job applications, and I even used it in my first graduate job when I occasionally worked from home. This is, if you will, Gummidge mk 1. Using it recently, I wondered at how much more writing I would get done with a computer which has no way of connecting to the internet, but we’ll leave that for now...

Listening to the ELO album Out of Time, in the car – one of Dad’s favourite bands and it’s got lots of computer/technical references: ‘she looks a lot like you, but she is an IBM’ is one of my favourite lines.

Seeing a white 1974 VW Beetle and a 1985 VW Golf at the Classic Car Show in Birmingham

We had a 1974 white one like this in the early eighties, when they weren't retro, they were just *old*.

These were all times I didn’t expect to cry, but I just went with it, because there’s really nothing you can do at times like that. Dad, a car obsessed, computer consultant, died in a light aircraft accident in 2001 and even now, it still makes me sad that he never saw the life I have with the Boyfriend. He will never read any of my writing. He won’t see the little Mazda sports car I bought which he’d always wanted to buy, but didn’t because he had two small boys and a wife.

Dad in his gyrocopter, which had the same engine as found in the Beetle. This picture was in my desk at my first graduate job.

I think it’s the permanence of the situation which still, even now surprises me. When I went back to Hampshire for the scattering of his ashes from one of his flying friend’s planes, the only thing which kept a lid on it all for me that weekend, was my Cher, Living Proof album. I realise that’s a very very gay thing to say, but as I drove around that weekend, seeing friends, making final arrangements for the scattering, and finally standing at the air field as his ashes were scattered, each time I returned to my car I put that album on and it lifted my spirits and allowed me to continue. Every June, the anniversary of his death, when Fathers Day’s splashed all over the place in a way I don’t remember when he was alive, I usually find myself descending into another dark period. And each year it surprises me because, come on, surely grieving since 2001 is enough already, no? Because I’m annually surprised by how badly June hits me, this year I am going to do a positive, interactive blog project here to mark it and share how it still feels for me, all these years later. I think in this time poor, switched on all the time society, we don’t really allow time for grief. I saw something similar a woman had done in memory of her mum who died before she was sixty, and was inspired to have a go. More details here as we approach June. I believe When it hurts We must keep on tryingBut I want, And I need Like a river needs the rain There's a bridge I need to burn before I leave I just wanna breathe again Like a summer's day I need to feel the heat againThat's Cher's Alive Again. And I don't think I could have said it better! Until next time, Liam Livings xx

We had a mustard brown and cream one of these which Mum and Dad used to drive round the block if I couldn't sleep when I was 2-3 year old.

I hope that creating your post helped a little with the dark feeling, and that you feel better before too long. I don't think there is a time-limit for grieving; even if it starts to feel less intense, it will always be there at some level. But what wonderful memories you have of your Dad!

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liamlivings@gmail.com

24/3/2014 08:38:24 am

Hi HJ, it has helped somewhat. I think Finding the laptop & it working has a real meaning and significance to me. If it hadn't worked I think I would have been more upset than not finding it all! Every time I pass Earl's Court I remember going 2 the Motor Show w Dad & my brother. When I pass Marylebone station I remember his office in Dorset Sq he showed us.
Liam :-)

###it still makes me sad that he never saw the life I have with the Boyfriend. He will never read any of my writing. He won’t see the little Mazda sports car I bought which he’d always wanted to buy, but didn’t because he had two small boys and a wife.###

I identified with this so much. My Dad died when I was 15. He'd had to give up school to help support his family, so he'd have burst with pride to see his girl get a double first at Cambridge. He never saw that, nor any of his five grandchildren (mine and my brother's) nor the way our generation paved the way for those grandchildren to live very different lives to him and his siblings.

*hugs*

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liamlivings@gmail.com

28/3/2014 07:19:24 pm

*hugs* it is sad, but we get through don't we, and I know that the good things I do would have made him proud. :-)

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Val Hughes

20/5/2014 06:04:45 pm

I miss my dad every single day, I was lucky to be 40 when he died. But he was in his 40's when he had me, and it annoys the hell out of me my siblings were in there 60's and still had him. Petty I know. My mum never wanted me, she suffered from depression and then was diagnosed with dementia when I was very small, so it was my dad that was my world. He taught me right and wrong, love, acceptance, patience, tolerance, and compassion just by being that way himself. Several times a day I think, 'must tell dad that' can't seem to stop myself thinking it. His birthday is hard, fathers day I almost always buy him a card, some years I have, or gone to pay ad had t run out the shop. I simply forget he's gone. Grief is a funny old thing. My dad would have loved you, and he'd have loved a look at your car, he was a mechanic. When he got sick and couldn't drive, he only let me drive him, which really annoyed my brothers. I have a 'thing' for nice cars, I got it from him, and he was a bugger for asking what buttons did while you'd be driving. "what's this one?"
"Ejector seat"
"righto, suppose this is the James Bond oil slick and that's the smoke screen? So which one is the gun in the front grill? this one? oh...hang on, me bums getting hot"
He'd pressed the seat warmer. On-board computers and sat navs? had him fascinated.

One thing I do know darling, is wherever our dads are, they are both proud of us and they do know what we get up to, I'm sure of it. You'll see him again when the time comes, a long way from now, and you can bet he'll know you thought of him often.
Some people are just special and touch our lives in a way that will never leave us, even when they have. *hugs tight*

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Liam Livings

21/5/2014 04:06:10 am

This comment just made me cry, in a good way. But I am a bit of a tart for crying I'll freely admit. My dad would have been in his element with all the technology about now, smart phones, hard drive recorders etc. He bought a digital camera when *no one* had them. It's as big as a toaster.
I think Fathers Day should be for all fathers, whether they're with us or no longer. I am bracing myself for both 1 June - anniversary of Dad's accident & 15 June, Fathers Day.
"Some people are just special and touch our lives in a way that will never leave us, even when they have." That is perfect and has just given me an idea for a story. *hugs tight*

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Val Hughes

21/5/2014 07:51:00 pm

I didn't intend to make you cry love, but if it helped, then I'm glad.
I think you're right, fathers day should be a celebration of the fact we had a father for us. So, we've been doing it wrong! It should be a day to remember the fun times, all the silly jokes and the things that they did and what they taught us. Not a day to mourn at all. Easier said than done, I know. But if we think about it, we know damn well our dads would want us happy, not sad. My dad would be horrified to think he'd upset me. He'd always tell me to embrace the good in things, look for the silver lining in everything, even death, or I'd end up bitter and miserable and unable to smile. As I child, I took that quite literal and thought people had 'broken smiles'.
Odd link for you, 1st of June is my daughters birthday. It's a bittersweet day for me too, she was a twin, but one died. It's also my cat Jack's birthday, he/she is hermaphrodite!

Michelle Cunliffe

1/6/2017 06:47:30 am

Hi Liam lovely blog. My mum passed in 1985 I was 19, she was due to leave hospital the day after she died. At the time and its only now that I have reached 50 that I have come to terms with her death and understand it more...I have found that listening music or watching tv programmes help with the memories, I always try to do something nice on my mums birthday even if its just buying a cupcake and wishing her a happy birthday.

My dad passed in 2003, three years after I got married but with dad we was expecting it, he had bowel cancer so was much more prepared but that still hurt in just the same way as mum. With dad when its Father's Day my husband has a whisky in his memory and we watch a programme that he would have liked.

All I will say is that never stop talking about your dad and always remember the happy times you had either to together or as a family.

Sending hugs XX

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Liam Livings

1/6/2017 10:37:54 am

Hi Michelle, glad you enjoyed it. I find music and TV programmes help with the memories too. Dad's birthday is 2 days after mine, so mine is always tinged with a bit of sadness.
Even when you're prepared, as you were with your dad, it's still sad when it happens and a shock that it's so permanent, I feel.
I talk about Dad all the time. Wonder what he'd make of my life now, the decisions I've made, my BF, my home, my writing and my work. I can't stop wondering if I'm making decisions he'd have thought were right, or been proud of. I hope he would be. xx